Is infanticide a legitimate defence?

Tracey Tyler Legal Affairs Reporter

Their numbers are few and their tragic stories vary, but women who deliberately kill their newborn children have long had something in common. The possibility of being treated more leniently than other killers.

But that could change with an important case starting Thursday in Toronto that could restrict the use of an infanticide provision in the Criminal Code.

A lawyer for the province’s attorney general will ask the Ontario Court of Appeal to rule that a mother who intentionally kills her child while mentally disturbed or suffering postpartum depression can’t defend herself by arguing the crime was infanticide, punishable by up to five years in prison.

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